


Ornament

by DesdemonaKaylose



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Fridge Horror, Functionalism (Transformers), Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Pre-War, Sharing a Bed, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, decadence & degradation, that's not how a dreamcatcher is supposed to work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:21:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29025651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: Megatron arrives at the mansion of Senator Ratbat, dead-set on securing this high ranking political ally to protect his movement and its followers from the long arm of the Functionalist Council. He's been threatened before by the powers that be, and he's determined not to be so vulnerable again.But in the senator's vast collection of beautiful things, there is this one beautiful thing he cannot ignore...
Relationships: Megatron/Rung (Transformers)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 99





	Ornament

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to Neveralarch for doing beta on this thing. This is a PNP setting, with a sparkplay-aspect. If you need details about the nature of the abuse alluded to later in this fic, just ask me. No on-screen sexual abuse occurs.

At the back of the ballroom, beyond the carved sculptures, beyond the gaggle of senatorial aides exchanging self important anecdotes all lean and hungry-eyed, beyond the sensory-burst tower with its many plug-ins available to guests, was the one thing in the grand sprawling house that struck Megatron still in his tracks.

Gleaming copper and flickering with teal biolights, a willowy mech reached up and caught a wobbling service drone in mid-air. There was a piece of trash caught in its little propellers, causing it to whine and lose altitude as it went. The mech caught it, gently, and pulled it down to himself. He picked the rubbish free and then tipped the little machine this way and that, checking for other debris. 

There was something about his handling, the absent way he stroked the unsparked creature as he held it, the way his handsome face screwed up as he squinted at the drone. And then—a smile, warmly pleased, as he released the drone back into the air. 

Megatron paused, his optics locked on the slight figure. “Who is that?” he demanded.

“Hm?” said Starscream, engrossed in the contents of his tiny hors d'oeuvres plate. He twisted his head and followed Megatron's gaze across the room, and then his mouth twitched into a cruel smile. “Oh,” he said, “you mean the ornament.”

That mech was watching the drone drift away, once again sure in its flight. No one else seemed to have noticed him. He seemed oddly isolated from the crowd, his warm smile taking on a pensive quietude. He gleamed, the kind of polish job that wouldn’t last the night where Megatron was from; beaded chains hung between the swept back panels of his helm and from the tips of both his antennae. Light picked out the scrollwork of golden glyphs wherever it hit his plating.

“Ornament?” Megatron repeated. He’d never heard of a person who was an ornament.

“That’s his function, bolts for brains,” Starscream said, smug in the petty sort of way he always was when he knew something that Megatron didn’t. Which was almost every moment of their acquaintanceship so far. Sometimes Megatron wondered if Starscream’s interest in social reform primarily stemmed from the need to feel properly superior to somebody, for once.

“You know,” continued Starscream, licking energon mousse off his finger, “something pretty to improve the ambiance. Fancy party-ware.”

“He’s beautiful,” Megatron murmured, and then clammed up as he realized who he’d said that to. He must have had too much to drink, to forget himself so. The cup of engex in his hand suddenly felt dangerous.

“Mm,” Starscream said, instead of lighting into Megatron with unrestrained glee as Megatron had been bracing himself for. “If you like them twiggy, I suppose.”

Megatron would rather not discuss the ins and outs of his aesthetic preferences with the slippery spawn of a glitch currently playing social mercenary for him. He was too busy to have preferences, anyway.

“He seems… different,” Megatron said, instead of subjecting himself to the indignity of that conversation. “Out of place. Like a word I can almost feel on the tip of my glossa.”

“His designation’s Rung,” Starscream said. “He likes it when you remember.”

Megatron gave his ally a sidelong look. There was something in the jet’s expression like humor, but distant, dark, and thoughtful.

And then Starscream scraped off the rest of the mousse into his mouth and shoved the empty plate at Megatron. “Tyrion is by himself at the fountain, I’m going to see if I can talk him around on that patent law they’re pushing this season. Do whatever you want, just be ready to pack it up when I comm you.”

And all at once he swept off, leaving Megatron alone in the garish jungle, to swallow down his nerves and steel his struts against the elements. The music, if you could call it that, was shrill and piping in the ether around him, smoke from cygars and fumes from exhaust filling the upper level of the grand ballroom with a silvery fog. Starscream had warned him not to go seeking out their host; presumed familiarity would only sour the senator against him, when Megatron needed him to be amiable.

Megatron drained his glass of the too-sweet, too-strong engex then looked fruitlessly for a place to discard it and the plate. Everything around was too crystalline, too gilded to possibly qualify as a waste receptacle. In the end he abandoned them both under a chair and marched away before a servant could notice and scold him.

His path quickly took him within arms reach of the handsome little mech by the banister. The mech startled and then looked up at him—it took a bit of craning to get the level of his gaze high enough. Megatron was at least a head taller than most of the other guests here, and this mech was at least a head shorter. For a moment they only stared at each other, each somehow surprised to be looking at the other. This close, Megatron could see that what he’d taken to be a particularly large biolight was an actual spark window, the kind of thing Megatron had only heard of in old sagas and particularly fantastical pornography. It was the same luminous blue as the mech’s wide optics. How strange, that in all his ordinary life a laborer like Megatron might ever encounter a mech like, like—

Megatron cleared his throat.

“—Hello!” the smaller mech said, brightening up as if on cue. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Whose acquaintance do I have the pleasure of making?”

“Megatron.” He stuck out his hand, to shake, and realized a moment too late that he wasn’t certain if alt-exempt mechs even shook hands at all. Primus, he shouldn’t have let Starscream go off without him, this was exactly the sort of gaffe Starscream was supposed to be running interference for.

Rung looked from the hand up to Megatron face and then back down again, his mouth twitching with amusement. After a beat, he lifted his own hand, considered the size of it, and then—instead of trying to enclose any part of Megatron’s hand in his modest grip—pulled the whole thing to his lips and lightly kissed the knuckles.

A scattershot of heat popped the circuits on the back of Megatron’s neck. He completely failed to say anything charming.

Rung let him go. Megatron tried not to clutch the prickling hand against his chassis; he’d never been touched like that, like the faded fuzzy images of a silver-age romance he’d seen in a commercial behind the counter at a bar.

“You seem a little overwhelmed. Maybe you’d like to sit down?” Rung asked him.

“No, I,” Megatron said, and then found himself again at a loss. He shoved through it grimly, searching for the words that came so easily when he was in front of a crowd. “I was hoping to. Talk to you. You’re Rung, aren’t you?”

“Oh,” Rung said, blinking as if something Megatron said had surprised him. But his smile quickly resurfaced. “Yes. Well, of course, I’ll keep you company if you like. Here, come with me.”

Rung took hold of his arm, wrapping both of his own around it, and reeled him away from the banister, down along the length of the great lawn-facing windows, and into a corner of the ballroom set with several nice lounges around a central square ottoman. It was quieter here, the chatter of the guests and the buzzing of the service drones more distant. Megatron let himself be pushed down into the white cushions of a lounge, even though Rung was nowhere near strong enough to shift him even an inch under his own power. Rung perched on the ottoman, legs crossed neatly knee over knee. “There,” he said. “Much better.”

Megatron grimaced down at the white plastic, thinking of how easily his armor would scuff it.

“I can’t imagine you’re at all used to integrating this caliber of sensory data,” Rung reassured him, “you’re doing very well for your first time at one of these.”

Megatron gave him a thin smile. “What gave it away? The treads?”

“More the handshake, but yes, the treads are a bit of a flag, under the circumstances.” Rung cocked his helm. “How did you come to learn my name, if I might ask a question in return?”

“Starscream told me,” said Megatron. “He’s—”

“Oh! Yes, I know _Starscream."_ Rung’s smile was abruptly tinged with wry… affection? _Really?_ “Did he drag you here and then abandon you to do the rounds? How like him.”

“I wasn’t dragged,” said Megatron, though he felt he lacked credibility when he’d just let a mech as small as Rung tow him halfway across the ballroom. He looked away with a grimace. “ _Translucendia Heights._ You’re right, I don’t know what I’m doing here, if it's not just to embarrass myself for the senator’s pleasure. Unmaker knows I don’t have time for upper class manners.”

“It takes some learning,” Rung said, with no little sympathy. “But don’t worry, they don’t really want someone like you to play at fitting in. You’d be much less interesting to them if you were as polished as...” he looked around, searching for an example.

“As you?” Megatron allowed himself to glance back at Rung, his gaze lingering on the delicate beads at Rung’s helm. “I wonder—Starscream said you were… an ornament. What exactly does that mean?” 

Rung’s optics blinked off and then back on again. “Oh my. I haven’t been asked that before. Well, let me see. I do basically whatever my master asks of me, which includes taking care of his guests.”

“So you’re a servant,” Megatron said, optics narrowing. He knew plenty of servants, and none of them looked so refined. It didn’t seem to fit any model of the world he was familiar with, to expend such impractical lavishment on the Help.

“Ah… hmm. Yes and no.” Rung steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, brow furrowed in thought. “As the term suggests, my nature in the household is inessential. In some other households I’ve acted as a personal secretary, but Ratbat already had one of those, so I… do other things.”

“Other things,” Megatron repeated dubiously. 

“You know, host guests. Run fetch. Entertain.” Rung smiled sardonically for a moment. “You know how people like to be made to feel important and interesting? Two hours I can listen to a junior governor bemoan the misfortunes that left him destitute and penniless, except of course for the millions of credits he has stored in an offworld vault.”

There was a light whirring in the air. Without even looking, Rung reached around and from the passing service drone brought up a plate full of little aluminum crusts, each of them full of some exotic jellied fuel. He took Megatron’s arm, flipped it over, and dropped one pastry into Megatron’s hand.

“They really only need someone to nod at appropriate intervals and offer sympathetic noises when they pause for validation. It’s very simple. But I learn a lot about people, which I find at least somewhat interesting regardless of who those people are.”

“It sounds like a nightmare,” Megatron muttered into his pastry. 

Rung laughed. He had a lovely laugh, first bright and fading to softness. 

“It’s my job to provide pleasant conversation,” Rung said. “Whatever it is that you consider pleasant. It just so happens that most here prefer the luxury of a silent conversational partner.”

Megatron grimaced around the last bite of pastry. There was glitter dust on top.

“But if you’d like to practice small talk,” Rung offered, “I’ve certainly got enough experience with that.” 

“I can’t think of anything I would like less,” Megatron said, “and that includes having the roof dropped on my head.”

“There’s nothing for it but practice,” Rung said, pleasantly but very, very firmly. “Now,” he went on in a brighter tone, “How are you enjoying the party?”

Ha, _enjoying._ For all its luxury and flashiness, the party might as well have been a long, juddering ride down on a lift to one of the impenetrable seams of nucleon that haunted his dreams. There was nothing in all the puff and fancy that Megatron found diverting, or useful, or relevant to his goals.

“I…” Megatron struggled between the inexplicable impulse to soften the truth for this mech and the more characteristic urge to declare his unvarnished opinions, regardless of their negativity. “It’s very—expensive,” he said, splitting the difference.

Rung blinked at him, and then abruptly snorted. It was an undignified sound, one that Megatron would’ve thought him wholly incapable of making. “Now,” said Rung, wiping a little washer fluid from the corner of his optic, “that’s something you’re supposed to notice, but not supposed to say.”

Megatron stuck out his chin stubbornly. “Perhaps people should say whatever they mean.”

“There are many times when a hammer will do as well as a wrecking ball,” Rung pointed out, with some amusement. “For example, I might say to you: how interesting that Senator Ratbat has found it within his budget to afford gold bunting, but not to upgrade his kitchen in six vorn?”

“What?” said Megatron, immediately distracted. “But the bunting is only barely useful for parties, and the kitchen feeds the senator as well as all his staff. If a lack of funds is the issue, it would make no sense to waste—”

“Ah, that’s where you make your first mistake,” Rung said, “because there is enough money in the budget for both things, managed correctly. It’s simply that Ratbat doesn’t think the kitchen deserves an allocation of funds right now, and won’t until its complete breaking down finally inconveniences him. If a leaking distillery and an energon frother that struggles to come to temperature is driving his chef to hysterics, that is simply a problem for the chef.”

Megatron swore under his breath. “So this is the mech with whom I’ve come to ally myself,” he said, folding his hands in front of his mouth. “A spendthrift and an idiot.”

Rung uncrossed and re-crossed his legs. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he said. “I’ve worked for several different masters over the ages and Ratbat is neither the stupidest nor the vainest. He’s only very careless, and arrogant, but plenty cunning.” 

“Is that really the best you can say of him?” Megatron asked. 

“He’s wealthy, he’s ambitious, and he’s entirely unsentimental,” Rung replied. “You could do worse for allies, if you’re going to take on Functionism itself.”

Every cautionary alarm in Megatron’s processor awoke at once. He began to run a flurry of passive analysis on the alcove, the room at large, the heat signatures, the electronic resonance.

“Oh no, I’m sorry, don’t be alarmed,” Rung said. His expression switched to a kind of pained sympathy. “It’s only natural that I would know who you are. I handle Ratbat’s defrag, you see. I know everything he knows, just about.” 

“You...” Megatron said, “you do what?”

“Well…” Rung said, “it’s something you might call… the indulgence of the intellectual class. When you enter a recharge cycle, Megatron—you being a common mechanism—you must dream all your own dreams. If they trouble you, you wake. The burden of processing, archiving, compartmentalizing, and flagging your experiences falls entirely on your own mind.”

Megatron shifted uneasily. His dreams—of enclosed spaces, of axes hitting stone, of energon dripping through treads along endless tracks—often derailed even the most desperately needed defragmentation process. He certainly knew the weight of memory.

“If you can afford it,” Rung said, with an oddly brittle sort of detachment, “it is entirely possible to outsource thought maintenance to a slaved secondary processor. Of course it means that I cannot sleep, not while Ratbat is plugged into me. So while the good senator enjoys his dreamless, perfect repose each night… I have his nightmares for him.”

An ugly feeling bloomed in the pit of Megatron’s tank, so dark and heavy and acidic—horror, he realized, the feeling was horror. To never sleep… to dream another mech’s dreams… to be used by him in every way, down to the very core of one’s most private self...

“I’m afraid sometimes that it’s made him worse,” Rung said, his gaze thoughtful and unfixed, drifting across the room. “I think that it has changed him, or unmoored him… or allowed him to forget what he’s done…” 

And then Rung shook himself, as if fear was only water to be shaken off, and resettled his attention on Megatron. 

“If you’re interested, I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it,” the mech said, with an easy pleasantness that made Megatron almost sick. “He does love to talk about his things. But that’s plenty enough about me for one night, what about you, what can I help you with?”

“I,” said Megatron, and then found that there was nothing else he had to say. He wanted to rail against his host, to proclaim the ever growing need for revolution, to tear this pretty little party to shreds and leave the senator’s home in ruins. All of these impulses seemed little more than immature tantrums in the face of Rung’s professional politeness. What could he tell such a mech that Rung didn’t know himself?

“Go on,” coaxed Rung.

“I don’t want anything,” mumbled Megatron.

Rung frowned. “You said you wanted to speak with me. If there’s anything I can do for you—any questions I could answer?”

Megatron shook his head. He felt too large and awkward—not for this place, he didn’t care about this place. Too large for this conversation. The hammers and battering rams of his movement weren’t meant for such delicate mechs.

“Don’t be shy, please,” Rung said, an edge of worry in his voice now. “I won’t judge you, I promise. Whatever you’re pondering, I’ve heard worse and stranger from other mechs. It’s my job to listen.”

“No, I,” Megatron said. “I should really—I should find Starscream, it would be better—” He was already up and halfway out of his seat, to the surprise of Rung, when the familiar voice froze him there in his tracks.

“Megatron! So you made it after all!”

Ratbat dropped into the couch across from Megatron with a flourish of cape-like panels. He leaned back, settled in, and snapped his fingers. Rung stiffened.

“Come here, pretty thing,” the senator said, almost offhanded, and patted his thickly curved thigh. 

Megatron was taken aback as Rung pushed himself to his feet immediately and circled the ottoman, seating himself in the senator’s lap. He was smaller than the senator by several measures, and sitting on that thigh, the tip of his antenna only brushed Ratbat’s chin. He folded his knees very neatly and, with no particular look of enjoyment, pressed himself close against the bronze and violet chassis.

Ratbat threw an arm over the back of the couch, and with the other he cinched Rung tight against himself. 

“I see you’ve been getting to know my ornament,” he said. “Cute isn’t he? Got him off an old Towers family at an estate sale.”

Megatron felt something sharp and painful twist at his spark as he watched Ratbat’s hand knead at Rung’s hip. “You bought-? But he’s a mech, like you or I, he can’t be property.”

Ratbat waved him off impatiently. “I know, I know, these modern _indisposable_ laws. Obviously I bought his contract, not his—well, metal. You’re a free mech, isn’t that right, Sweetspark?”

“That is what it says on my contract,” Rung answered. If his tone was laced with irony, Ratbat didn’t seem aware of it.

“See, we’re not like the old senate around here,” Ratbat said, switching his attention back to Megatron entirely. “We’re all about new things. Competitive markets, you know, the right to work. Die hard Functionalists, they want everything to be about alt modes and _natural orders_ and that kind of sentimental cogswallop. But I say, Cybertron is ready for innovation.”

“I would hardly call sentimentalism the worst part of Functionism,” Megatron retorted. “The abuse of—”

“You’re missing the larger context,” Ratbat said. “You should have seen the state of the gameboard, before Sentinel Prime came in and cleared off all the extra pieces. If there’s one thing to be said for him, he’s never been superstitious. Quite changed the tone in the legislature, when he took up.”

Well Megatron could agree with that. Sentinel Prime didn’t like Functionism any more than any newly-radicalized laborer. It was only that Sentinel Prime disliked many other things, including but not limited to worker’s rights, so-called social climbers, and anything or anyone else that he considered ‘greedy.’ He would doubtless dislike Megatron, if he could ever be bothered to take notice of him. Megatron opened his mouth to say something of that effect, but Ratbat blithely ran over him.

“It’s good to have this little chat,” he said. “A meeting of like minds. We both understand that Cybertron is due a shake-up, don’t we? I hope we can reach some sort of… sponsorship agreement. I can see which way the storm is blowing, and when it hits the sea, I’d like to have my levies built.” 

There was a rush of hot air at the back of Megatron’s treads, and then the unmistakable scent of high-end polish as Starscream leaned over the back of the couch. “Oh my,” he purred, “you didn’t start negotiations without me, did you? I’d almost think you were trying to get my friend here alone for some reason.”

“Of course not, Starscream,” Ratbat said, his amiable tone betraying only a hint of the loathing that flashed for a moment in his cold yellow optics. “I was only doing my due diligence as host. Here, let me get us some drinks.”

He snapped his fingers in the air, and a serving drone zipped over to their alcove. The marvel of its antigrav engineering kept the brimming glasses of engex secure and unspilled as it hovered first before Starscream, then before Megatron. 

It was no fault of the drone when Ratbat reached for his own drink and unbalanced himself in the process—Rung’s forgotten weight spilled out of his lap as Ratbat leaned too far, and he had to steady himself against the ottoman with the hand that had been holding Rung’s waist. Rung flailed a little as he fell, which was the natural instinct of any mech, and caught at Ratbat’s arm, pulling it to the left. Ratbat missed the cup and knocked over the drone instead, sending a rain of engex all over the couch and down his own plating.

It all happened in a moment. Megatron was still reflecting on how peculiarly easy it had been to forget Rung’s presence when, in a strike like the viciousness of lightning, Ratbat snatched Rung up by the throat. 

“Don’t be clumsy, you stupid thing,” Ratbat snapped. “Dimwitted little toy…”

Megatron slammed his hand down on the ottoman between them, hard enough that even through the quilted padding, something in the frame popped. “Don’t talk to him like that,” he growled. 

Ratbat looked down at Megatron’s hand, spread flat in the likely-permanent depression of pleather. “Excuse me?”

Starscream laughed, high and false. “Oh! What a misadventure. No harm done, I’m sure all of this will just clean right up.” He laid a hand on Megatron’s shoulder and lowered his voice to growl into Megatron’s audial. “Don’t cause a _scene.”_

Rung had his hand on Ratbat’s wrist, not trying to fight his way loose, just—resigned.

“He’s not a toy,” Megatron said, stubbornly. “He’s a free mech! He doesn’t deserve to be treated like trash by some tin-can towers brat who can’t even process his own defrag!”

Starscream sucked in a vent, and his claws dug into Megatron’s plating. The senator looked from Megatron’s expression to his hand on the ottoman to his expression again. Then he smiled sweetly with his optics just a little too narrow. “You’re right, of course,” he said, “I don’t know _where_ that came from. How dreadfully gauche of me. It must be the stress of hosting such a large and important event. The long day has gotten to me.”

He let go of Rung’s neck, taking him gently by the face instead as Rung wobbled a little on his feet. The senator was still looking at Megatron, though, his optics still narrow.

“You know, after so many years surrounded by blue-wire types, you can’t help but pick up some bad habits. But you don’t mind, do you, Sweetspark? You know I don’t mean it.”

“No,” said Rung, so quietly that Megatron almost missed the words. “I understand entirely.”

A small swarm of cleaning nanobots arrived, quickly sucking up the engex from wherever it had spilled. In moments there was no trace of the accident, Ratbat had another drink, and Rung was restored to his place on Ratbat’s lap.

Megatron refused to forget him this time. He let Starscream and Ratbat talk politics over his helm, while he memorized the nuances of Rung’s expression. It was serene, untroubled—except for in the corners of his optics, where the mask slipped just a little.

“I mean,” said Ratbat, “you have to admit that cassette processors aren’t really _up_ for handling anything so complex as _self-determination,_ but—” He paused, glancing down, and then made a moue of unhappiness. “Oh, I’m smudged.” He prodded the bat-headed insignia on his chestplate. “Sparklight, would you—yes, perfect. In any case, you two are _delightful,_ but I really shouldn’t let you distract me with this shop talk when I have a party to run. We’ll just have to put a pin in this for now.”

As he spoke, Rung had reached into a compartment at his hip and unwound a polishing cloth. He leaned down and blew a soft puff of ventilation over the troubled plating, condensation from his cooling system clouding the metal. 

“I can’t possibly neglect the rest of my guests— _you missed a spot, Sparklight, there’s a good mech_ —when there’s so many old friends who came such a long way just to visit with me. No, I’m afraid we don’t have time to get into business tonight.”

“Of course,” said Starscream, with only the hint of an edge lurking in his voice. “I quite understand.”

“I don’t,” snapped Megatron, starting forward in his seat. “Then what did we come all this way—”

A clawed hand smacked tight over his mouth, and Starscream wrestled him back against the lounge with that deceptive jet-frame strength. “What my friend means,” he said, “is that we’ve responsibilities of our own, and with other commitments that take up _such_ a lot of our time, we really can’t afford to be traveling back and forth just for the sake of it. We planned to leave with some sort of… commitment, at the very least.”

Ratbat was smirking and apparently not listening. He glanced down at Rung’s work for a moment, admiring the renewed sparkle leisurely, and then plucked the kerchief from Rung’s hand.

“Stay the night,” Ratbat said, flicking open Rung’s left chestplate like a door on a hinge and stuffing the dirty polish cloth into some compartment he found there. “Both of you. We’ll have a nice long chat in the morning, just the three of us.”

“Oh, we couldn’t,” Starscream started to say.

“Nonsense,” Ratbat interrupted. “I’ll have rooms for both of you made up. Really, it would be a favor to me if you’d stay, I just rattle around in this place when I’m all alone. Starscream, I know you’ve been eyeing that oil bath I installed last season. I believe the house just received a new shipment of cannula...” 

“Well, if you’re certain it wouldn’t be an _imposition,”_ Starscream said, wings flicking with suppressed interest. His red optics glittered with the new consideration of free luxury.

“Of course. I’m sure you’re both tired. Especially you, Megatron—Kaon is such a long journey from here, after all, isn’t it? You’ll want to get a good night’s rest, if I’m any judge.” There was a cruel edge in Ratbat’s personable smile, now. 

Megatron clenched his jaw. It was true, the journey was long and he _was_ tired. But he’d almost rather pick up and leave for a motel in Rodion than stay another hour under the roof of such an odious, slimy, two-faced—

“I know,” said Ratbat, brightly. “Why don’t you take Rung?”

Megatron cycled his auditory suite. “What?”

Ratbat poked his finger into Rung’s cheek, forcing the finely angled face towards Megatron. In the blue optics that had been so warm and teasing earlier, there was nothing now but blank servility. 

“You seemed interested in what I use him for,” Ratbat said. “Been talking to him about it, have you? About what he does for me?” 

“It wasn’t...” Megatron frowned deeply, “I have to take an interest in the working classes—form and function comprise—”

“Yes, I’m sure you do. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s such a cute little handful, _aren’t you, Sweetspark?_ ” Ratbat flicked Rung’s cheekguard as he pulled his hand away. “Well, Megatron, now’s your chance. Get a first hand experience.”

Megatron looked from Ratbat to Rung, whose stillness gave nothing away. Megatron’s spark was a squall upon the rust sea, toxic and tumultuous. _How dare you treat your own employee like a party favor? How dare you try to buy me with someone else’s body?_ But they needed this mech’s patronage, badly, if only for now—the words that burned in Megatron’s throat were only for himself, only for his own pride. What would become of the movement, if he broke open his spark casing now and let that raging tempest pour out?

He pulled in a great cool deluge of air through his dorsal vents, so that his spark became only a roiling pinprick of heat in his chassis. 

“No,” Megatron said. “Rung is your employee, not mine. It would be an unfair imposition on him.”

Ratbat simply waved him off. “Oh, don’t argue, I won’t have it. After all, you’re a guest! My house is your house. My staff is your staff. I understand you come from a background of some _stark_ deprivation. You’re in the Heights, my good mech! Why not treat yourself while you can?”

Megatron’s fist creaked from the pressure of clenching it.

 _“Don’t ruin this for us,”_ Starscream hissed, directly against Megatron’s helm.

“Senator,” Megatron ground out, “as _gracious_ as your hospitality is—”

“Then it’s settled,” Ratbat said, flashing his wicked incisors. “Take him for the night. ” 

He snapped his fingers, and Rung obligingly climbed off, with an almost painful self possession as he moved: chin up, back straight. 

“We can have a proper meeting after seventh bell tomorrow,” Ratbat went on, “in the meantime, please, make yourself comfortable. I’m sure you’ll find the accommodations beyond reproach.”

Ratbat stood (using Rung’s frame carelessly to lever himself up), fluffed his ancillary plating, and then took Starscream by the shoulder as he passed, pulling him away from Megatron. “Starscream, walk with me. I believe I know where the air marshal is lurking tonight. You might could catch him before his shuttle arrives...”

Megatron watched him go and steamed silently, thinking of how good it would feel to tear that insignia right off the front of the Senator’s chest plate and break it in half. 

“Come on, then,” Rung said. His voice, his face, were neutral. “Soundwave pinged me your room assignment. Unless you’d rather stay a little longer at the party?” 

“Don’t feel obligated to me,” Megatron said, “if I’m keeping you from other duties—”

“Megatron, these _are_ my duties,” Rung said. It wasn’t effusive, exactly, but it wasn’t cold either. Megatron felt a tightness in his spark ease by a fraction. Rung patted him on the hand.

The little charm hung from the tip of his antenna swung as he turned, light catching the star-shaped crystal in a spangle of blue-green light. There was an almost eerie aspect to his kibble-less back, the proportions of his frame graceful but disconcerting. Megatron staggered into motion after him, his processor a whirl of thoughts that kept dead ending with the play of light on Rung’s crystal antenna charm, flashing like a suggestion of bared spark.

Rung led him up a floor, into the guest quarter of the mansion. The elevator was terribly quiet. Rung did not look at him.

The lift opened. Rung led him down a twist of halls to a door which was done in the style of a dramatic arch. When Rung reached out to open it, the creamy metal parted down its center and slid back into the walls, revealing a room softer and more luxurious than even the nicest Megatron had ever seen. When Rung made no move further, Megatron hesitantly ducked inside. The ceiling was a bit close for his liking, but not in any direct danger of scraping his helm.

“Would you like me to show you the amenities, or…?” Rung asked. The door slid closed just behind him, whisper-quiet.

“No,” Megatron said, and crossed his arms tight across his front. “I’m not interested in all _that,”_ he said, thinking of Starscream’s accursed gluttonous vanity.

“Oh,” Rung said, in a tone that Megatron couldn’t quite read. 

He went around to the circular window in the far wall and cycled it through a series of polarizations until it settled at last on an intricate lace patternwork of shade and darker shadow. He turned back from the darkened window, his optics and spark-glass—like a rose window of its own—bright against the dim. 

“Well,” he said, “sit down?”

Megatron hesitated, some deep part of his processor superstitious that even to sit on the furniture was a tacit endorsement of the whole gilded charade. 

Rung tsked and then came forward, herding Megatron back to the edge of the berth and pushing him down into the padding, where he threw a leg first over one of Megatron’s thighs and then over the other. His frame clicked and clattered as a ripple of micro transformations pulled back his armor in a dozen places, revealing delicate dataports, some of them scraped up as if some mech either clumsy or intoxicated had tried to shove themselves inside. An effort had been made to buff the scrapes out, but the damage was either too deep or too constant for him to keep up with.

Rung reached in, placed the flat of his hand on the glass of his spark window, and twisted his wrist. The glass came loose with a _click,_ and Rung neatly set it aside on the nightstand.

All this in the span of a few moments, and then Rung was bare in Megatron’s lap, as defenseless against the grabbing and groping of the world as a protoform. Several of his little ports irised open, tiny mechanisms glinting silvery in their depths.

Megatron locked up, barely daring to even open his vents. Rung either didn’t notice or didn’t seem to think it was important; his fingers were seeking out the most likely places in Megatron’s armor for interface equipment to be recessed.

“If you’re going to touch my spark,” Rung said, in a matter of fact way, not looking up at Megatron’s face, “please don’t squeeze it. I say that as much for your sake as mine, the radiation levels are very high and I’ve had careless guests scald their fingers before.”

Megatron’s gaze was pulled to the open window as if by the intractable force of gravity. The spark glittered, flared like a miniature blue sun, unlike anything he’d seen before, delicate and gracefully erotic and free for the taking—

It was impulse, not reason, that took control of Megatron’s hands and threw Rung off him, to fall stunned against the ground. The mech landed in a clatter of polished limbs and wide eyes.

“Pardon _me,_ but what exactly do you think you’re doing?” Rung said, apparently honestly outraged, pushing himself up on his palms. The open interface ports were twitching, distressed, his frame caught between trying to close itself against further violence and some other, more powerful protocol, holding it open.

“I,” Megatron said, “I can’t—I haven’t—”

Rung’s expression softened, and then, almost visibly, he tucked the outrage back away. He pushed himself up onto his knees and folded his hands there, very polite, very reserved. “You’ve never interfaced for pleasure before?”

Megatron’s insides felt as if some swarm of crawlers was clawing to get out. He thought of Messatine, of the pressure, the needle-sharpness, how that mech’s protocols had swept through him like endless grasping fists, holding him still. He had almost been nothing, hollowed out like an empty husk, and still at the edges of his awareness there had been the itch of pleasure as Trepan’s system sparked sensation off Megatron’s paralyzed mind.

“No,” he said. 

Rung reached up and started screwing the anchor of the chain and ornament off his primary antenna. “I see.” He leaned over and set his jewelry aside, on the nightstand with his spark glass. “It’s not much done where you’re from?”

“Not really,” Megatron managed. Impactor had tried it, he remembered, but then Impactor would try anything, no matter how risky or stupid.

“It’s a popular recreation with the senator’s ilk,” Rung said. “It’s quite enjoyable, when done properly. Generally anyone whose company I keep for a night wants it.”

Megatron shuddered at the idea of letting anyone into his most intimate systems, beyond the firewalls that protected his mind from fusion and dissolve. There was no _reason_ to interface with anyone but doctors, no good it could do—except to bring rich mechs deep into the systems of some beautiful thing they wanted to possess.

“Every time?” Megatron said, his voice static-hoarse. “They make you do that every time?”

“The defrag outsource procedure is already a kind of interface,” Rung told him. “Why not have more, while the ports are open?” 

Then he made a face—not a smile, but maybe a grimace with some humor in it. His fingers brushed a prominent dataport on his chest, one where any previous attempt at buffing out the evidence of wear had proved futile. 

“When I was classified by the council,” he murmured, “they said it was only natural that superior mechs would want to use me in this way. Primus gave me these assets for a reason. After all, what’s the purpose of an ornament except to be pleasing?”

All the open irises shuttered themselves, finally. He had so many of those, or at least, Megatron knew his own frame had a lot fewer—just the wrist port for normal medical maintenance, and the dorsal neck port for processor surgery. As far as he knew, everyone constructed in Tarn was like that.

“What would you like me to do?” asked Rung.

“Nothing,” said Megatron. He’d embarrassed himself too much tonight. He wanted, very badly, to be left alone to soothe his own wounded ego. “You’ve shown me my room. That’s enough.”

“If I leave now,” Rung pointed out, “Ratbat will wonder why I’ve been sent away. At worst, he’ll think there’s something you’re hiding from him, and he’ll start digging to find it.”

Megatron’s spark withered. There was no way Ratbat could know about Messantine, but—

“What’s the _best_ case scenario?” he asked. 

Rung hummed. “At best, he’ll assume that I’ve offended you somehow and been thrown out.”

Megatron swore. 

Rung’s lips quirked a little. “I suppose I could try and avoid him—”

“No,” Megatron said, sharply, “don’t do anything. Stay right there. I’m thinking.”

He leaned forward, hunching over himself on the edge of the berth while his processor raced. After a moment, Rung unfolded himself from his seated position and went about putting away his jewelry into his little compartments, first the antenna charm and then the beaded chains still attached around his helm. 

There must be something—something Megatron could do _for_ Rung, rather than to him. He twisted to look at Rung head on. “Can you use me to defrag instead?”

Rung paused in his neat little movements. “What?”

“Let me do it for you,” Megatron said. “The way you do it for Ratbat.”

He had thought the opportunity for relief would intrigue Rung. But Rung only shook his head.

“What?” Megatron demanded. “Am I good enough to abuse you but not good enough to _help_ you?”

“You don’t want that,” Rung said. “You’re not used to it. You’ll be exhausted in the morning, and charged up, and disoriented, and Ratbat will know in a moment what you’ve done.”

“I don’t care _what_ he thinks he knows!” Megatron retorted. “I can do whatever I want for whoever I want, and if he doesn’t like it, he should stop throwing mechs at me!”

“Ah,” Rung said, and then somewhat apologetically, “the consequences I was imagining wouldn’t be for _you,_ actually.”

Oh. Oh _damn._ Megatron slumped forward again. “I’ve gotten you in trouble,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. 

“It’s nothing,” Rung said. “You don’t need to feel guilty about it.”

“It’s _something,”_ Megatron countered. “I’m being used as a _punishment_ for you, it’s—it’s infuriating.”

“You’re not the first guest I’ve been asked to entertain,” Rung said. “You certainly won’t be the last. I’ve put my foot down before, you know.”

“And?”

Rung shrugged, not looking at him. “There’s nothing Ratbat can do to me that hasn’t been done before. I’m not afraid of him. But I like being free, so I do what I have to do to stay that way.”

“You call this being free?” Megatron said, darkly.

“It’s not being locked in a toybox for days at a time,” Rung responded. “I’ll take it.”

Megatron stared at him, at all his lovely angles and intricate paint, his expensive detailing. “How can they do things like this?” he asked. “How can they just—just close the doors and—”

Rung walked back over to him, climbing up onto the berth beside him. He reached out, closed Megatron’s hand in both of his smaller ones. “I think it’s the nature of power,” he said. “In his own domain, a mech like Ratbat is absolute. And when you can have anything you want, you always want more.”

“You make it sound inevitable!” replied Megatron. “I know it isn’t! A good mech would never— _I_ would never—”

Rung gave him a sympathetic look. “Do you want me to go?”

Megatron pulled his hand free of Rung’s grip. “I don’t want you to suffer for my sake,” he said. He should be used to this. All his life, in pit after pit, caught between the caving ceiling and the yawning deep. Entrapment. This was what came of chasing after beautiful things. 

“It’s not so bad,” Rung said, “the job, I mean. I’ve gotten used to it. I can catch some rest of my own in the middle of the day, while Ratbat is busy with returning calls—Soundwave covers for me for a few hours—and then if I’m not called for in the evening I stay in my little room and I build my ships… What I mean to say is that you shouldn’t waste your energy worrying for me. You have enough problems of your own, if I’m any judge.”

Megatron sighed sharply. “My problems aren’t your concern.”

Rung smiled, and reached up to stroke one delicate thumb over Megatron’s cheek. “You’ve too many lines in your face, for a mech so young.”

“I’m not young,” said Megatron.

“You are compared to me,” said Rung, lightly. “And handsome, too. I couldn’t quite see, until I got this close—I did try to tell Ratbat that I’d be a better social companion if I could see more than a foot in front of my face, but he’s much concerned with my aesthetic than he is with my comfort.”

“If you’re trying to flatter me,” said Megatron stiffly, “it would be better not to remind me that you are continually degraded and that there is nothing I can do to help.”

Rung dropped his hand from Megatron’s face and was silent. “I would have to plug into you,” he said, after a little while. “To outsource my defragmentation, I mean.” His hand hovered over the open compartment beneath his glowing spark, where the cable lay spooled tight. 

“Absolutely not,” Megatron said, swallowing back a sudden surge of horror.

Rung lifted an eyebrow. “So you agree it’s a bad idea?”

Megatron scowled, feeling trapped and useless and unwilling to be gracious about it. 

Rung sighed also, and then smiled. He offered out his hands. “We’re missing the obvious solution,” he said. “Let’s just sleep, then, you and I. We’ll each dream our own dreams, whatever they may be.” 

“Won’t you…”

“We’ll just pretend,” Rung said. “If you seem insufficiently rested in the morning, you can just tell Ratbat that you wore yourself out fragging me. He’ll be delighted. One more thing to hold over you, next time.”

Against his will, a fizzle of arousal went up the back of Megatron’s neck. It felt alien to him, disorienting—but when he took Rung’s hands, Rung’s grip was warm and chaste.

“Come on,” Rung said, urging him up from the berth. “He really does keep the washrooms fully stocked. Let’s give you a touch up before recharge, and you’ll just look _stunningly_ hedonistic by breakfast.”

  
  


The paint and polish had been relaxing, the conversation good once Megatron had gotten over the awkwardness of the situation. Rung put on his thick little spectacles, somewhere in the middle, and seemed much more at home. When Megatron laid down to rest, he did so with an only half-reluctant smile, and readily made room for Rung to join him.

But in the middle of the sleep cycle, Megatron woke with his vents heaving and his fuel pump pounding, head full of the sound of fracturing stone. In his recharge, he’d half thrown himself out of berth, a hand planted in the cushion as if to push himself the rest of the way off the platform. He cycled his optics, and the disorienting fuzz resolved itself into a barely familiar room. He glanced down. Rung was in recharge beside him, shoved awkwardly to the edge of the berth by Megatron’s panic.

His optics were still offline—he was clearly in standby mode, despite the fluctuations of his power, unconscious—but some frame memory, or some underlying protocol, had him responding to Megatron’s movement.

Hesitantly, not quite comfortable being this close to anyone, let alone someone whose entire frame he could probably crush without much effort, Megatron reached for him. His intention was to pull the smaller mech back, away from the edge, where at least he wouldn’t accidentally roll off should he have some alarming dream of his own. 

Rung’s systems whined as Megatron touched him, all the lights of his frame flaring and then cooling again. His helm rolled away, and his interface array came open, automatically, in the spot nearest to Megatron’s hand—

Megatron snatched his hand back, horrified, as the little dataport flexed and then opened to its widest configuration, ready for use. Rung was still asleep. He made a little noise, brows pulling into something like a frown. His fingers twitched.

Megatron stared. The little port, soft-lined with silicone, crackled with static in the darkness. How many times, he wondered, had some bigger mech—like him—rolled over in the night and plugged himself into Rung without waiting, without asking, without even _waking him_ —

He could do it now. He could do it now and it would only be one more small indignity among a lifetime of worse, only one more violation. And Rung might not even remember, and if he did, what could he do about it?

Sick with the thought of it, Megatron rolled over onto his side and curled up, as far away from the other mech as possible. 

The dark was full of a fitful blue glow, and the soft sound of Rung’s overworked frame grinding through its basic maintenance. The beautiful room confined them both as surely as any prison, as any mine shaft, as any oubliette. The world seemed very small, and very cruel, and the morning very far away.

Megatron did not sleep again. In the morning he left Starscream to his negotiations and spent the breakfast in silence, thinking of Starscream’s half eaten Tarnish Delight, glitter-dusted, and of the compromises that must be made in the service of the Cause.


End file.
